×It makes a difference which potion you save for the second orb.

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Another great level. I’d say mid to low range difficulty. Lots of good optimization potential here. Particularly like the eastern secret room. Solved all rooms plus challenges.

Entrance: overlapping speech between Halph and Beethro. Not a big deal but I think it can be fixed.

2N1E – I’d move the checkpoint at 4,14 to 8,15

2N1W – please move checkpoint at 28,8 to 24,12 and it would be nice to have one at the end of the first section somewhere betwen 30-32,12. In the second section please move cp from 13,13 to 12,14 or thereabouts.

2N – I solved without using a roach baby. If the intended solution is to lure a baby down and use it in the western section to trigger the plate, you’ll need to lose a row at the top of the western box. (I couldn’t manage that solution. I could get the goblin into the its alcove while bringing a roach out to trigger the western plate, but I couldn’t do that and get north in time to drive the queen down to the hot tiles before she spawned again. Is that the intended solution?)

2N1W – Nice room. Took me a while to see the actually quite easy solution to getting the goblin one step closer to the northwestern decoy. However, what was the purpose of the two hot tiles in the southwest?

1N1E – please move one checkpoint to 13,19

4N1E – I blocked the goblin in to a mirror box and smashed mirror at the entrance to the northern alcove, but there are so many ways to solve this one it will be fun to optimize.

4N1W – Good room but not sure if the section after the gate blockage (7,4) to the L corridor in the SW was supposed to be harder. You can do it in one shot with the goblin just trailing after Beethro until he gets to 9,16. Would rather have a checkpoint at 8,17 though instead of 6,14.

4N – The chamber checkpoints are rather useless where they are. Could you move them to 12,11 and 24,11 or thereabouts?

6N – Is there a UF part II where that pesky goblin makes trouble later?

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1N – The three upper checkpoints really don’t come into play, but one around 18,14 would be handy.

2N1E –I don’t think I stepped on a single checkpoint as they are currently placed; 23,16 ; 23,10 ; 20,14 and/or 20,12 would be more useful spots.

4N2E – very nice lynchpin that becomes obvious once you realize that, even if you had more mirrors, there would still be a major problem.

3N1E – another checkpoint that I never hit. On the switch token would be better.

3N4E – outer corner checkpoints in the western chamber are unhelpful and even misleading. Just put one under the arrow at 6,11 so I don’t have to place the mimics over and over and then another one in the central section if you want another.

3N5E – That was cool. Will movement order have been covered earlier?

1N3E – Required lots of thought but a good way to show gel vs mud movement. And while there are lots of checkpoints in the room very few of them are useful, especially the ones on the pressure plate. Instead of the eight in two ordered lines, how about just three or four but put a couple in the central area? And I don’t think anyone will need a checkpoint at the end of each of the S bends. Maybe one at the start and one halfway thru? The one at 9,28 should go too.

2N4E – Well this room is a lot easier once you realize that shallow water surrounds you (and what that means!) Challenge: complete the room without once skipping a spawning cycle and you too can smack your palm against your forehead when realization sets in. (Demo attached as per request in chat.) The good thing about me over complicating rooms is that it helps me find US's. Not in this case of course, but still.

2N2E – I think I broke it. Or it’s pretty simple. But then why have a disarm token? Cross the arrows, hit the switch token, place decoy to chew up the landscape (getting sword back at some point to swat at any babies that come my way) and use the switch token once. If the idea is to carefully deal with generating babies then I think putting the re-arm token behind a black gate could fix that.

2E – Personally I actually found this one even easier than the original.

3N2E – I didn’t need the upper or lower shallow water turnarounds. Was I supposed to?

1N2E – Simple straightforward room. Nice break from the earlier rooms I played through.

5N – Nifty.

5N1W – Wow this was really tough. I found it the hardest in the hold: harder than the secret rooms. And again a room where I managed not to hit a single checkpoint as they are situated -- as I found time and again when I hit R to back up. Since this is so tightly timed they really should move to more helpful spots. The first two as you enter the room are unnecessary. The central ones should all be moved one space N,S,E or W. Take a look at your demo and that should tell you which way. You also probably won’t need so many if you want to cut back on some.

1N1W – Another easy room. Haven’t managed the challenge yet though.

2N1W – Not my favourite type of room but once you get the pattern, rinse repeat.

3N1W – Currently the only way out of this room is to not use any of the pressure plates to burn a blob. Otherwise the gate in the north closes and there are force arrows to the west. So I’m wondering if the room is incomplete or if there is a challenge to come that will be posted in the alcove behind the green gate at 22,13. Else why the PP/firetrap combos? The seeding beacon? And the empty alcove? Is there supposed to be a PP there that will turn off the force arrows? Mysteries. Disoriented pointed out I was missing seeing a second black gate. Took a while but I found it. I agree with his comment above (which I missed earlier.) Need to make this more obvious.

3N2W – Haha. Sneaky.

4N – Tricky. These are the kind of tarstuff puzzles I like.

3N – Not hard and though it doesn't really /need/ a checkpoint, the ones that are there are not helpful. Unless they are simply for when the player walks through to another section I guess.

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I love the "Show, Don't Tell" approach used in the levels. I've just completed PoI and UN, though. And that's without reaching/completing the secret rooms.

Judging from the puzzles presented, I think that the beginners should be told about the "Hints and Solutions" board early enough in the hold.

PoI:
Even though this is supposed to be a fairly easy level, this level is lynchpin-oriented (of which there is no problem to me) and there are a few rooms which stumped me. In 4N, I initially thought that the decoys are placed to attract the roaches so only a few reaches me (I was wrong; those decoys are used for an entirely different purpose). I really think that 5N1W is one of the, if not the, hardest room in the level; it had a nice lynchpin which took me time to figure out. But that's my opinion, beginners may have different opinions, and rooms that I find easy or trivial may be engaging/challenging for them.

UN:
A medium level, but it did not take me too long to clear. Unlike PoI, which is lynchpin-oriented, this level focuses more on manipulation. There's nothing too hard in this level, and it's quite good for beginners to make themselves comfortable with goblin maneuvers for the next levels. My favorite room is probably 2N1W, which reinforces the concept from PoI that monsters prefer Beethro more than decoys if he is in the range. 5N is a nice "boss" room to end the level. I didn't clear any of the challenges except the one in 1N1W. That challenge is quite instructive, though. It teaches that irregularities (e.g. asymmetry) in room design may be the key to the solution.

GS:
I haven't cleared the level, but I think the puzzles are quite challenging.

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As I said before, the level contains challenging puzzles, but the puzzles are not too challenging or obscure that beginners will be put off.

The first few rooms before 3N is basically teaching the basic concepts of gel (i.e. where to cut, gel babies' movement, gel mother growth) in a "Show Don't Tell" manner.

The puzzles on the west side depend on the properties of gel, while the puzzles on the east (switcher token) side depend on the differences in properties between gel, tar and mud.

There are quite a few interesting puzzles which sometimes do stump me, but many of the puzzles have simple ideas which are familiar to more experienced players. This, though, is not really a problem for me, especially for a hold designed with beginners in mind (Teaching beginners common tricks is always good in my book).

Cutting the gel together with a mimic, as in 4N, is already a "trick of the trade", and I've used the trick in one of my holds, but what made this room different is the space given to you. I find it a bit difficult to manipulate the mimic to the position I desire, and I think the order you clear the gel blobs do matter, especially since three gel babies will be released after the black door opens.

3N5E is a clever movement order puzzle, but it actually has already been documented in an article in the DROD website.

My (current) favorite rooms is 4N2E. It has quite a nice lynchpin, which depends on the behavior of gel babies.

5N1W is a very difficult room which requires a rather precise manuever. It is easy to "almost" solve this puzzle, but to actually solve the puzzle, But even then, it is still difficult to solve, due to the force arrow and the rather short time constraint.

Actually, 5N1W can be made a lot easier by using disabled force arrows instead of active force arrows.

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4N2E - I did get the lynchpin, but I didn't get why there would be a major problem even if there were more mirrors.

3N4E - I thought the checkpoints in the western chamber are actually very helpful! I solved it by cutting the mud using the mimics only on the four corners. How did you solve the room, then?

3N2E - I did use the turnaround to avoid stepping on the switcher tokens. I solved this room by making a "wall" of tar babies. Again, how did you solve this room?

×GS:

2N2E - From the comments above it seems like the whole idea was cutting by stepping on the switch token, which I didn't do at all. I placed one decoy facing NW at the bottom to make one cut, switched to tar, and then placed them one at a time to destroy the remaining tar. Felt like I was missing the whole point here.

2N1E - I found this tough - I ended up cutting the gel until it formed three babies over the bottom right door, which gave me freedom to herd gel over the plate in my own time.

3N1E was cool - having the restriction of the challenge actually made it easier for me, since that almost forced the placement of every decoy rather than leaving me to figure out what works and what didn't.

3N1W (accessing secret room, bottom left blob) is a classic DROD challenge, but frustrating to pull off even when I knew the general techniques.

3N3E and 2N2E - I found both of these a bit more tedious than difficult but perhaps there was a more optimised technique.

3N2E - I didn't use the turnaround / step on the north force arrow at all either (in fact, I didn't even see I could get out through the north force arrow) Just generated so many babies that there were enough left after crossing over the switch tokens.

3N2W - teaches you something very interesting about gel! Until you finally figure out why on earth that decoy and disarm token are doing there.

UN:

3N2E - liked this one a lot - thought I had tried everything until figuring out the subtle tweaks I could do at the bottom left.

1W - I really really really felt like this room should actually exist (Especially before finding the secrets, the lack of symmetry made me positive a secret would be here.)

PI:

7N - Gigantic Jewel Lost revisited Even though this level is intending to be simple, this particular puzzle felt way too simple though - there isn't even a single alternative to the actual solution worth considering.

4N1E - very nice - feels like a classic puzzle (one per column, one per row, one per diagonal) but unsolvable without a twist of what you can do with your sword.